Preface

Showing that to teach rules for the interpretation of Scripture is not a
superfluous task

1. There are certain rules for the interpretation of Scripture which I think
might with great advantage be taught to earnest students of the word, that
they may profit not only from reading the works of others who have laid open
the secrets of the sacred writings, but also from themselves opening such
secrets to others. These rules I propose to teach to those who are able and
willing to learn, if God our Lord do not withhold from me, while I write, the
thoughts He is wont to vouchsafe to me in my meditations on this subject. But
before I enter upon this undertaking, I think it well to meet the objections
of those who are likely to take exception to the work, or who would do so, did
I not conciliate them beforehand. And if, after all, men should still be found
to make objections, yet at least they will not prevail with others (over whom
they might have influence, did they not find them forearmed against their
assaults), to turn them back from a useful study to the dull sloth of
ignorance.

2. There are some, then, likely to object to this work of mine, because they
have failed to understand the rules here laid down. Others, again, will think
that I have spent my labour to no purpose, because, though they understand the
rules, yet in their attempts to apply them and to interpret Scripture by them,
they have failed to clear up the point they wish cleared up; and these,
because they have received no assistance from this work themselves, will give
it as their opinion that it can be of no use to anybody. There is a third
class of objectors who either really do understand Scripture well, or think
they do, and who, because they know (or imagine) that they have attained a
certain power of interpreting the sacred books without reading any directions
of the kind that I propose to lay down here, will cry out that such rules are
not necessary for any one, but that everything rightly done towards clearing
up the obscurities of Scripture could be better done by the unassisted grace
of God.

3. To reply briefly to all these. To those who do not understand what is here
set down, my answer is, that I am not to be blamed for their want of
understanding. It is just as if they were anxious to see the new or the old
moon, or some very obscure star, and I should point it out with my finger: if
they had not sight enough to see even my finger, they would surely have no
right to fly into a passion with me on that account. As for those who, even
though they know and understand my directions, fail to penetrate the meaning
of obscure passages in Scripture, they may stand for those who, in the case I
have imagined, are just able to see my finger, but cannot see the stars at
which it is pointed. And so both these classes had better give up blaming me,
and pray instead that God would grant them the sight of their eyes. For though
I can move my finger to point out an object, it is out of my power to open
men's eyes that they may see either the fact that I am pointing, or the object
at which I point.

4. But now as to those who talk vauntingly of Divine Grace, and boast that
they understand and can explain Scripture without the aid of such directions
as those I now propose to lay down, and who think, therefore, that what I have
undertaken to write is entirely superfluous. I would such persons could calm
themselves so far as to remember that, however justly they may rejoice in
God's great gift, yet it was from human teachers they themselves learnt to
read. Now, they would hardly think it right that they should for that reason
be held in contempt by the Egyptian monk Antony, a just and holy man, who, not
being able to read himself, is said to have committed the Scriptures to memory
through hearing them read by others, and by dint of wise meditation to have
arrived at a thorough understanding of them; or by that barbarian slave
Christianus, of whom I have lately heard from very respectable and trustworthy
witnesses, who, without any teaching from man, attained a full knowledge of
the art of reading simply through prayer that it might be revealed to him;
after three days' supplication obtaining his request that he might read
through a book presented to him on the spot by the astonished bystanders.

5. But if any one thinks that these stories are false, I do not strongly
insist on them. For, as I am dealing with Christians who profess to understand
the Scriptures without any directions from man (and if the fact be so, they
boast of a real advantage, and one of no ordinary kind), they must surely
grant that every one of us learnt his own language by hearing it constantly
from childhood, and that any other language we have learnt,—Greek, or Hebrew,
or any of the rest,—we have learnt either in the same way, by hearing it
spoken, or from a human teacher. Now, then, suppose we advise all our brethren
not to teach their children any of these things, because on the outpouring of
the Holy Spirit the apostles immediately began to speak the language of every
race; and warn every one who has not had a like experience that he need not
consider himself a Christian, or may at least doubt whether he has yet
received the Holy Spirit? No, no; rather let us put away false pride and learn
whatever can be learnt from man; and let him who teaches another communicate
what he has himself received without arrogance and without jealousy. And do
not let us tempt Him in whom we have believed, lest, being ensnared by such
wiles of the enemy and by our own perversity, we may even refuse to go to the
churches to hear the gospel itself, or to read a book, or to listen to another
reading or preaching, in the hope that we shall be carried up to the third
heaven, "whether in the body or out of the body," as the apostle says, and
there hear unspeakable words, such as it is not lawful for man to utter, or
see the Lord Jesus Christ and hear the gospel from His own lips rather than
from those of men.

6. Let us beware of such dangerous temptations of pride, and let us rather
consider the fact that the Apostle Paul himself, although stricken down and
admonished by the voice of God from heaven, was yet sent to a man to receive
the sacraments and be admitted into the Church; and that Cornelius the
centurion, although an angel announced to him that his prayers were heard and
his alms had in remembrance, was yet handed over to Peter for instruction, and
not only received the sacraments from the apostle's hands, but was also
instructed by him as to the proper objects of faith, hope, and love. And
without doubt it was possible to have done everything through the
instrumentality of angels, but the condition of our race would have been much
more degraded if God had not chosen to make use of men as the ministers of His
word to their fellow-men. For how could that be true which is written, "The
temple of God is holy, which temple ye are," if God gave forth no oracles from
His human temple, but communicated everything that He wished to be taught to
men by voices from heaven, or through the ministration of angels? Moreover,
love itself, which binds men together in the bond of unity, would have no
means of pouring soul into soul, and, as it were, mingling them one with
another, if men never learnt anything from their fellow-men.

7. And we know that the eunuch who was reading Isaiah the prophet, and did
not understand what he read, was not sent by the apostle to an angel, nor was
it an angel who explained to him what he did not understand, nor was he
inwardly illuminated by the grace of God without the interposition of man; on
the contrary, at the suggestion of God, Philip, who did understand the
prophet, came to him, and sat with him, and in human words, and with a human
tongue, opened to him the Scriptures. Did not God talk with Moses, and yet he,
with great wisdom and entire absence of jealous pride, accepted the plan of
his father-in-law, a man of an alien race, for ruling and administering the
affairs of the great nation entrusted to him? For Moses knew that a wise plan,
in whatever mind it might originate, was to be ascribed not to the man who
devised it, but to Him who is the Truth, the unchangeable God.

8. In the last place, every one who boasts that he, through divine
illumination, understands the obscurities of Scripture, though not instructed
in any rules of interpretation, at the same time believes, and rightly
believes, that this power is not his own, in the sense of originating with
himself, but is the gift of God. For so he seeks God's glory, not his own. But
reading and understanding, as he does, without the aid of any human
interpreter, why does he himself undertake to interpret for others? Why does
he not rather send them direct to God, that they too may learn by the inward
teaching of the Spirit without the help of man? The truth is, he fears to
incur the reproach: "Thou wicked and slothful servant, thou oughtest to have
put my money to the exchangers." Seeing, then, that these men teach others,
either through speech or writing, what they understand, surely they cannot
blame me if I likewise teach not only what they understand, but also the rules
of interpretation they follow. For no one ought to consider anything as his
own, except perhaps what is false. All truth is of Him who says, "I am the
truth." For what have we that we did not receive? And if we have received it,
why do we glory, as if we had not received it?

9. He who reads to an audience pronounces aloud the words he sees before him:
he who teaches reading, does it that others may be able to read for
themselves. Each, however, communicates to others what he has learnt himself.
Just so, the man who explains to an audience the passages of Scripture he
understands is like one who reads aloud the words before him. On the other
hand, the man who lays down rules for interpretation is like one who teaches
reading, that is, shows others how to read for themselves. So that, just as he
who knows how to read is not dependent on some one else, when he finds a book,
to tell him what is written in it, so the man who is in possession of the
rules which I here attempt to lay down, if he meet with an obscure passage in
the books which he reads, will not need an interpreter to lay open the secret
to him, but, holding fast by certain rules, and following up certain
indications, will arrive at the hidden sense without any error, or at least
without falling into any gross absurdity. And so although it will sufficiently
appear in the course of the work itself that no one can justly object to this
undertaking of mine, which has no other object than to be of service, yet as
it seemed convenient to reply at the outset to any who might make preliminary
objections, such is the start I have thought good to make on the road I am
about to traverse in this book.